Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Keith Bardwell really started all of this. Long story short, this Louisiana judge refused to grant a marriage license in October 2009 to a mixed-race couple because he was concerned for their future children. Bardwell thought that if their children were of mixed races, they would be excluded from both groups.

Suzy Richardson thought this was uncalled for, so she uploaded a portrait of her own happy mixed-race family to Facebook, saying she planned to send it to Bardwell in a Christmas card. Almost immediately, her friends who were also in mixed-race families jumped on board. The niche community, and mixedandhappy.com, was born.

The idea went international, and what started out as one mother sticking up for the happiness of her children became a worldwide phenomenon.

“And so it turns out that a bad decision sparked a Facebook status that sparked a movement,” Richardson says on her website.

Bardwell received 130 photos of mixed-racial families from around the world that Christmas.

Richardson said in an interview that she is still defining the role of mixedandhappy.com.

“We talk about anything and everything mixed-race families would want to talk about,” she said. She wants mixedandhappy.com to be a community and a news site.

“People need to connect,” she said.

Mixedandhappy.com attracts traffic through its content, according to Richardson. While she uses social networking to spread the word about new stories, many times people find her website by entering phrases like “products for mixed hair” and “mixed relationships” into search engines like Google.

Richardson said she knows of a website called interracialfamily.org and sites this as the only real competitor of mixedandhappy.com. To compare, Mixed and Happy defines itself as “…the first news site dedicated to the mixed-race community.” Interracialfamily.org says its mission is to “facilitate the culture recognition of interracial/multicultural families and disassociate this culture from longstanding stigma by exposing and discrediting stereotypes.”

Richardson said that “interracial” was used more in the 1990s, and people seem to be getting away from that term.

“I decided to use the word ‘mixed’ even though people have bounced around it for so long because they thought it was a bad word,” she said. Her little sister was mixed, so she wanted to embrace the term.

“It makes people want to be a part of it,” Richardson said.

She is currently working with the City of Gainesville to hold the first Loving Day in the city the weekend of June 12, the anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court case in 1967. This decision made anti-miscegenation laws illegal.The celebration would bring together a local group of people who are members of the niche market mixedandhappy.com appeals to. In addition, mixed-race families in Australia want to start a Mixed and Happy chapter there.

“As I was writing (the card to Bardwell), I realized that this project was all about love,” Richardson said. “Because, when all is said and done, that’s what changes hearts and lives.”

Shannon: Using Social Media and Balancing the News with User-generated Content

Mixed and Happy, while it does focus on the news, is also meant to serve as a virtual community center.One way the site does this is through social media, like Facebook and Twitter.During our interview, Suzy Richardson, the founder and editor of Mixed Happy, talked about the various roles the social media sites have played in throughout the site’s history.In fact, it was a Facebook post that moved her to create a blog dedicated to covering issue related to mixed-race people and families.The post received so much attention from friends that created a Blogspot, which eventually became a full-fledged website.

The Facebook page also allows readers to connect with one another by sharing family photos, posting on the discussion board and generally showing support and love for Mixed and Happy.In this way, the Facebook page is an extension of the website in that it offers readers a place to not only discuss Mixed and Happy stories, but also to bring in outside influences which could possibly serves as story ideas.

Richardson went on to describe how she and the site’s reporters use the Facebook page to attract traffic to the site.She says she understands it would be ridiculous to expect people to be able to extensively connect socially on the site when most people already use Facebook to do so.Therefore, she uses the Facebook page to promote stories on the website.

Balance User Generated Content & the News

Mixed and Happy is unique in that it is dealing with issues that deeply affect people.The story about the mixed-race couple being denied a marriage license, a cross burning at a mixed family’s home, how a family is dealing with a transracial adoption: these are all very emotional stories to the authors and the readers.When I asked Richardson about how she tries to balance the site’s news stories with content contributed by users (like photos and personal stories), she said it can be difficult.As one of the few websites dedicated to mixed-race families and issues, many users expect it to do and be everything.Richardson said, as an alumna of the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications, she has a passion for journalism and wants her site to reflect that commitment.

Part of what Richardson is doing to make sure the site maintains a strong news presence, is to bring in outsiders to help revamp the site.For example, she recently found twointerns through the College’s Job and Internship Fair.Bringing in communications students, who are familiar with writing news stories and would do the internship for academic credit, allows her to have contributers who are committed to helping the site grow.One issue Richardson discussed was the inability of finding reporters and contributors who would stick around after expressing initial interest.“I have to be careful on screening people. In the beginning, I let people write if they wanted to. What I found is that if there’s no exchange, financial or credit, people will stay with you briefly and kind of disappear.”Richardson’s commitment to keeping her site a news site is very apparent in the carefulness she uses when choosing whom to bring into Mixed and Happy.

Johnelle: A website with no advertisements?

Usually, free websites and newspaper sites use advertisements as a way to generate profit.While news sites and websites in general usually have ads to the top or sides of their web pages, Mixed and Happy displays no ads whatsoever, in turn, generating no income.This is one of the first things our group realized when analyzing the site, and we found it to be unique. But while other sites are concerned with getting loads of web hits, in turn gaining money from advertisers, the motive of Mixed and Happy is just to dedicate itself to news and the community for mixed-race families and allow this sometimes overlooked group of people to connect with one another.The founder, Suzy Richardson, has a passion for journalism, which helps keep her motivated to run the site.

Though it seems as if there are purposely no ads on the site, Richardson says it’s actually this way because she needs help making it happen.She says she is not the most tech-savvy person and is a one man band, basically doing everything on her own when it comes to supervising the site.However, she says she, along with the contributors, is in the process of reconstructing the whole face of the website, which will include ad space and ad campaigns in the future.With the new interns hired, there may be a sooner change with advertisements being placed on the site.

Between now and last week, actually, our group has observed this revamping taking place.Before, there were multiple links that would link to the same destination, and the links were a little disorganized.Now, instead of having multiple links at the top of the screen with drop box menus leading to the same page, there are now only designated links entitled “Home,” “About Us,” “Submissions” and “MH Around the World.”A lot of times we may notice that advertisements in newspapers and websites reflect the given content.Richardson says part of the revamping process will allow people to advertise what they want on the site.

But just because there are no ads doesn’t mean there is no traffic.Richardson says the site actually gets a pretty decent amount of traffic, and the social media outlets are key factors in attracting people.Surprisingly, the site attracts many viewers just through simple Google searches, such as “products for mixed hair” or “mixed relationships.”Including advertisements on the site will definitely be a positive change and would probably help to generate some sort of profit in the future.

Pursuant to the state open records act, I request access to and copies of a detailed breakdown of where each and every one of students' tuition dollars goes.

I do not expect any fees.

If my request is denied in whole or part, I ask that you justify all deletions by reference to specific exemptions of the act.

Thank you for your assistance.

Sincerely,

Lily Parkinson

2. The response

Lily:

I received your public records request today for “access to and copies of a detailed breakdown of where each and every one of the students’ tuition dollars goes.”

I am not aware we have such a public record in existence but I will certainly inquire to find out. The University of Florida is required by law to provide existing records to you for your review but we are not required to create a record for you.

I will get back to you in coming days regarding your request. If you have any questions, please let me know.

Thank you very much for your follow-up to my request. I was wondering if your inquiry into the existence of a document detailing where tuition money goes has yielded any results. Please let me know at your earliest convenience.

Best,

~Lily Parkinson

4. The results

Lily: Thanks for checking back. I have been out of town, only returning today. I will check on it for you. janine

Lily:

The State of Florida considers tuition to a part of appropriations and commingles these funds. Through our budgeting model, we allocated tuition to each college. Attached is a spreadsheet that details how much tuition we allocated to each college. At the college level, this money is commingled with state appropriations, so you cannot tell how much tuition is used to pay each faculty member or operating expense. I hope that helps.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

I think Wordle would be a good tool for making sense of political speeches. Often times, they are filled with jargon and can be difficult to understand if you’re working quickly on deadline.A Wordle of a speech would give a basic outline of some of the main points. Such a visual representation would make the politician’s ideas and thoughts clearer to readers.

Wordle would also be helpful to compare different speeches by the same politician, especially during an election cycle.A series of Wordled speeches by a particular politician would track the issues they’re covering and provide insight to how they may or may not adjust their campaigns during an election cycle.

Along those same lines, a journalist could use Wordled speeches to compare the rhetoric of various politicians from different parties and to compare how different parties members may react to the same event. The New York Times link shows something similar to this. I think the reporter in this case used the Wordled speeches very effectively. Rather than just showing two images and expecting readers to understand what they mean, the reporter gives an explanation of how and why the two images are different. Catherine Rampell writes, “Mr. Bush’s speech was intended to explain and calm anxieties, whereas Mr. Obama’s speech was intended to make the case for significant, permanent policy changes (which perhaps explains Mr. Obama’s relatively greater willingness to use terms like “crisis” and “failure”).”She wraps up the article nicely by trying to include reader comments.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

I first met Marcee Lee Winthrop in March at an open mic night. She and her daughter, Tammy, were sitting in the shadows of The Orange and Brew, anxiously awaiting Marcee’s turn at the mic.

Feeling out of place at a poetry event and in desperate need of a source for my story, I approached Marcee and Tammy’s table. The anxiety that shared their table was welcoming to me, even as I was every bit as anxious as they were. I asked that dreaded reporting icebreaker:

“Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

That was months ago. Now I’m no longer the only person banging on Marcee’s door looking to tell her story. And what a story it is.

Marcee’s story of an upward ascent out of poverty is one that reads like a fairy tale.

Impoverished for the last two decades, abandoned by her husband of seven years, and left to be a single mother to her 14-year-old daughter and having to go without many of the things most of us take for granted, she struggled.

“We flat-lined,” she said. “We were already poor, but now we were indigent.”

Until one day, a fairy godmother appeared. Though not the kind you would expect. Marcee’s fairy godmother was Marcee.

“I was on a journey to get out of poverty and it started with a mind change,” she said. Her mindset changed from “I can’t” to “I’ll try” to “I will.”

And for the sake of her daughter, she promised that they would be out of poverty by the end of the year, “and I don’t lie to my daughter.” So in January she decided to give it a go. Her New Year’s resolution, she declared, was to lift herself and Tammy above the poverty level.

And now, with three months left in 2009, Marcee has transformed from a housewife-turned single-mother to something of a local celebrity. With her first book, “Poverty Revolution Part One: Skimming the Surface,” already under her belt and another on the way, Marcee now must try to make time for all the new media engagements.

In the coming weeks, she’s scheduled to share her work with a women’s studies class, sing for World Peace Day and to participate in a panel on homelessness in Gainesville, FL. At a recent appearance for the University of Florida’s Association of Black Communicators, Marcee’s metamorphosis was on display for students to see. Clutching two crumpled, heavily-scribbled-on sheets of paper, Marcee charmed her audience with inspiring life stories about poverty, happiness, her daughter and a nearly-sold-out book.

Several on-line bookstores carry “Poverty Revolution,” she said, but not amazon.com. “I’m sure I’ll get them,” she laughed. “They’ll get the second edition.”

She even came with a personal photographer. David, she says, was a student recommended by the Department of Journalism to take pictures for her upcoming second edition.

Marcee has achieved a remarkable amount of success in a short period of time. Poetry, she hopes, will be her ticket out of a poverty that has haunted her for much of her life and for all of her daughter’s.

Marcee’s tale is empowering. Without much work history or money, but with an abundance of determination and will power, she has managed to carve out a livable niche with her daughter.

Like a flower growing between the cracks in a sidewalk, Marcee’s talent and acclaim have blossomed in a city notorious for treating its impoverished populace like second-rate citizens.

But for Marcee, it is the struggle that she wants to inspire people not the success.

“I want people to know that it is possible to start with absolutely nothing.”